Sunday, May 28, 2017

The Gear of Alien: Covenant

In July of 2012, I was Portland, OR with a ticket in hand to see The Dark Knight Rises. The night before, we decided to see Ridley Scott’s latest sci-fi epic as a primer. Though I already knew that Prometheus was a pseudo-Alien prequel, what I didn’t know is that it that would fill my head with enough ideas to pretty much completely ruin my Batman experience and give me enough questions to think about for the next 18 months or so.About 30 seconds into Alien: Covenant I realized it was in fact a direct follow up to Prometheus—not the indirect sequel we were initially led to believe. And I was stoked. Finally, answers would arise! Well, some questions were answered, others weren’t. But what was clear was—man, this movie looks awesome: the cast, cinematography, locations, sets, and yes… the gear.

Scott and his costume designer Janty Yates enlisted the help of fashion designer Craig Green to create a completely original, but familiar and functional look for the away team’s uniforms. I was completely struck by the textures and tones, the buckles and the brims. You can see from Green’s previous work that he has a knack for riffing on classic fatigues, giving them a futuristic and almost otherworldly vibe. From this interview with Yates, we learn that Scott instructed to his design team not to revisit what we’ve seen in the previous Alien films and do so with an eye for simplicity. Ironically, it was these fashionable threads’ lack of a space helmet that led to the team’s troubles. At least they looked good in the process.